Cindy Pawlcyn recalls 1979 dining scene

Updated 12:52 am, Saturday, March 23, 2013

Cindy Pawlcyn, who opened Mustards Grill in 1983, was one of the first chefs to put in a garden.

Cindy Pawlcyn, who opened Mustards Grill in 1983, was one of the first chefs to put in a garden.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

Cindy Pawlcyn recalls 1979 dining scene

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Mustards Grill, which opened in 1983, has been credited with fueling the current Napa Valley dining scene. Before that time, the region's restaurant food generally fit the French/Continental mode. She opened a casual restaurant with an eclectic menu that featured warm goat cheese salad ($3.60), Chinese chicken salad ($6.95), smoked chicken ($7.50), prawns with house-smoked bacon ($7.80), Sonoma duck with onion jam, papaya, lime and mint ($10.75), and onion rings ($1.95) with house-made ketchup.

Pawlcyn gave the food a sense of place. She also put in a garden - one of the first restaurateurs to do so - and for 30 years it has informed her menu, which has become even more eclectic.

She strengthened the Italian connection to the valley by opening Tra Vigne two years later with her then-partners at Real Restaurants, who were also responsible for Fog City Diner, Buckeye Roadhouse and many other trend-grabbing restaurants.

Today you can still get the famous Mustards onion rings ($7.95) and a variation on the goat cheese salad ($9.25). Those are joined by sweet corn tamales with wild mushrooms ($10.50), a seafood tostada that changes daily ($27.50), the Mongolian pork chop with sweet and sour cabbage ($26.50) and her take on coq au vin with red-wine braised rabbit, onions, mushrooms and bacon ($26.95).

Pawlcyn is now the dean of the Napa Valley culinary world, still going strong with Mustards and two other restaurants: Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen and Cindy's Wood Grill and Wine Bar, which had a short life as Brassica and a longer run as Go Fish. She proves that to stay on top, you have to adapt.

I asked Pawlcyn to share her recollections of the area's dining scene when she arrived. She describes a very different Napa Valley, but one that was poised to become the destination it is today, 34 years after her arrival.

Cindy Pawlcyn, in her own words:

I moved here late in the fall in 1979 and went to the Robert Mondavi Winery for the "Great Chefs of France" program run by Michael James and Billy Cross. What a dream - the guys had such creative and wild ideas that have not been surpassed. I was the "dishwasher," which included making breakfast for the chefs so they got to know me and I got all sorts of extra lessons.

We had so much fun hosting Roger Verge, Pierre Troisgros and Gaston Lenotre, to name a few. I'd get croissants for their breakfast from the Oakville Grocery that was still run by the couple who opened it. At the time, Trefethen also hosted cooking classes.

St. Helena had a classic greasy spoon called Vern's Copper Chimney, and Miramonte (now Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen) was run by Udo Nechutnys, who went on to be the opening chef of Domaine Chandon and then went to Auberge du Soleil.

I lived over a Mexican restaurant on Main Street in Calistoga, and the Mount View Hotel was in its heyday. Laura Chenel was a server there, trying to get her goat cheese company off the ground. I think her only two clients at the time were Chez Panisse and Wolfgang Puck in L.A. Domaine Chandon was about 2 years old.

I opened the restaurant at Meadowood as chef, and then left to work with Bruce LeFavour at Rose et LeFavour in St. Helena. It was ahead of its time and had wonderful food and service, like a pre-French Laundry. Sally Schmitt opened that restaurant and had also started the Chutney Kitchen, which was still going strong along with the Three Sisters Bakery. There was an Italian restaurant called the Grapevine Inn; they had a can sorter, so that should let you know about the quality of the food.

This was all before Mustards opened. Others followed such as Jonathan Waxman's Table 29 (now Bistro Don Giovanni) and Jeremiah Tower's Stars Cafe, but many of these places have come and gone.

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